Richie shifted his feet—the draft was sweeping up the stairs to eddy round our ankles, rattle the handle of Emma’s door. He said, “I’m not seeing how anyone could ask for this.”

“Neither am I, at least not yet. But if the Spains were living like the Waltons, then who bashed their walls in? And why didn’t they just call someone and get the place fixed—unless they didn’t want anyone knowing what they were involved with? Or what one of them was involved with, at least.”

He shrugged. I said, “You’re right: this could be the one in a hundred. We’ll keep an open mind. And if it is, that’s just another reason why we can’t get it wrong.”

Patrick and Jennifer Spain’s room was picture-perfect, just like the rest of the house. It had been done up in flowery pink and cream and gold to look olde-fashionede. No blood, no signs of struggle, not a speck of dust anywhere. One small hole, where the wall met the ceiling above the bed.

Two things stuck out. First thing: the duvet and sheets were rumpled and thrown back, like someone had just jumped up. The rest of the house said that bed didn’t get left unmade for long. At least one of them had been all tucked up, when it began.

Second thing: the bedside tables. Each of them had a little lamp with a tasselly cream shade; both the lamps were off. On the far table were a couple of girly-looking jars, face cream or whatever, a pink mobile phone and a book with a pink cover and kooky lettering. The near one was crammed with gadgets: what looked like two white walkie-talkies and two silver mobiles, all standing docked on chargers, and three empty chargers, all silver. I wasn’t sure where the walkie-talkies came in, but the only people who have five mobiles are high-flying stockbrokers and drug dealers, and this didn’t look like a stockbroker’s pad to me. For a second there, I thought things were starting to come together.

Then: “Jaysus,” Richie said, eyebrows going up. “They went a bit over the top, didn’t they?”

“How’s that?”

“The baby monitors.” He nodded at Patrick’s bedside table.

“That’s what those are?”

“Yeah. My sister’s got kids. Those white ones, that’s the bit you listen to. The ones that look like phones, those are video. Watch the kid sleep.”

“Big Brother style.” I moved the torch beam over the gadgets: white ones on, screens faintly backlit; silver ones off. “How many do people normally have? One per kid?”

“Dunno about most people. My sister’s got three kids and just the one monitor. It’s in the baby’s room, for when he’s asleep. When the girls were small she just had the audio, like those”—the walkie-talkies—“but the little fella was premature, so she got the video, keep an eye on him.”

“So the Spains were on the overprotective side. A monitor in every room.” Where I should have spotted them. It was one thing for Richie to get distracted by the big stuff and miss the details, but I was no virgin.